TV Shows I Really Wish Dexter Morgan Would Visit
by: Protoclown

If you're familiar with Dexter (and if you're not, shame on you—it's one of the best shows on TV), then you know that the eponymous main character is a serial killer, but he only kills bad people who deserve to die. Perhaps I'm a little more liberal in my definition of "those who deserve to die", because I can think of plenty of other shows that I wish he could visit and go "take care of business" over with their cast of characters.

So let's pretend for a moment that Dexter considers extremely annoying people to be worthy of his death sentence and imagine how much better life would be if he could cross over into some of these other shows for a special guest appearance.  Let us also imagine, for the sake of variety, that Dexter may deviate from the norm and use different methods to do away with these characters so that this doesn't get really boring after about the third entry. Many of these shows have already completed their run, so let's just consider how great it would be if Dex could appear in a rerun and suddenly retcon these sorry losers out of existence. So who should be on Dexter's hitlist?

Home Improvement

The Target: Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor

The Crime: When the main character for a television series is built around an annoying stand-up schtick, you just know you're dealing with a quality concept that will last the test of time. Sadly, in its early years I watched more of this series than I'd ever care to admit, before I developed things such as "taste" or "a brain". Tim Allen's constipated caveman grunting and his oh-so-hilarious commentary about gender relations ("boy, men and women sure are different! Men like power tools and women like to shop! *grunt grunt poooop*") get tedious after about five minutes, and eight seasons of this garbage would be enough to drive nearly anyone to murder. And boy, did they ever get things right when they nicknamed his character "the toolman" because he's about as big a tool as I could imagine anyone being.

The Method: It doesn't take much of a stretch to imagine that Tim Taylor's demise has to in some way involve power tools. I suggest painfully building him into the framework of a small outhouse and then sealing him inside it a la "The Cask of Amontillado". Then perhaps Bob Vila could be called in to christen it with its very first use. After eating Mexican for lunch and drinking lots of cheap beer.

Friends

The Target: Pretty much the entire cast

The Crime: Being cliquish, rich, pretty, self-centered, whiny, boring douchebags. I know plenty of people have loved this show over the years, with its formulaic plots and unconvincing two-dimensional characters, but I have never been able to fathom why. I have seen several episodes, and its feeble attempts at evoking laughter from me are about as effective as tank treads on a submarine.

The Method: Dexter would have to be introduced as the new significant other of one of the female cast members, gaining the trust of the other characters for an episode or two. He would suggest that the group all get together one night to play some games, at which point he would introduce them to a very fun game called "Murder in the Dark".

The Simpsons

The Target: The Simpsons

The Crime: Remember when The Simpsons used to be a good, fresh, funny show? I vaguely seem to recall such a time through the cataract-filled haze of distant, wispy formed memory. Hell, maybe this commentary isn't even valid anymore. Perhaps they've gone full circle and are funny again for all I know. The last time I attempted to watch the show was several years ago and it was about as humorless as a vasectomy performed with a screwdriver, a brick, and no anesthetic. Maybe after nineteen years and the fact that I have seen them rip off themselves by rehashing the plots of earlier episodes, it's time to say goodbye. They could have and should have gone out on a high note, so they'd be fondly remembered. As it is now, whenever someone mentions "The Simpsons", most people I know roll their eyes and groan.

The Method: Okay, so it's really not his style, but the Simpsons will all be dispatched with ironic death traps, a la Saw or Seven. Homer will be fixed with a heart plug, with a string tied to a donut attached to the end of it. Marge will be scalped by a giant vacuum that will remove her hair and the rest of her skull. Lisa will be given a puzzle, the correct answer being the one that results in death. Bart will be killed by the Flanders boys, who are given a gun and a tip from "God" that that neighbor boy "has the devil in him", and Maggie will be thrown in a garbage crusher with a voice-activated shut off.

Family Matters

The Target: Steve Urkel

The Crime: Do I even need to explain this one? Really? This pathetic, dated caricature of nerds with his hitched up pants, suspenders, glasses large enough for all the LOST survivors to float back to civilization on and still have room to spare, and a nasally high pitched voice that sounds something like Jar Jar Binks with a cold and a broken nose apparently had audiences laughing it up in the early 90s. Where are these rumored audiences now? Well, no one will admit to knowing anything about them, and they are only spoken of in hushed whispers in dark shadowy corners, so who knows? I heard that one of them was all made up of Bigfoots.

The Method: Obviously since we are dealing with the world's biggest nerd who gives every other nerd a bad name, his death would have to involve some kind of horrific wedgie. Dexter would stuff his tighty-whities (because you know a guy like Urkel doesn't wear boxers) with razor blades or perhaps an angry rottweiler puppy before doing the deed.

Full House

The Target: Everyone except for Danny Tanner (just hear me out here)

The Crime: Being really really really really really really really really lame. And annoying.

The Method: This one is easy. Dexter would lock everyone in a room with a gun and a special switch that will release deadly gas into the room if Uncle Joey stops telling his lame jokes for even a minute. The situation should work itself out. And why is Danny Tanner spared, you ask? Well, if you've seen Bob Saget in anything besides Full House and America's Funniest Home Videos, you would know that it would only be a matter of the very next episode before he was horrifically violating the corpses, and that's some good family programming right there.

Cavemen

The Target: All those goddamn stupid cavemen

The Crime: The fact that they're part of a television series that sprung forth from a line of Geico Insurance commercials should be enough to damn them to the bowels of Hell, but the fact that they're really intensely, immensely unfunny certainly helps. I'll never understand why so many people like these stupid cavemen. I have seen one or two of the commercials and they are just plain dumb. There is nothing charming about them at all. Die cavemen die.

The Method: Naturally, to dispatch these terrible annoyances, Dexter would dress up as an astronaut and bludgeon the cavemen to death one by one with a monkey wrench.

Two and a Half Men

The Target: Charlie Sheen's annoying "sidekick"

The Crime: I have had the misfortune to catch bits of this horrible show on a couple occasions, usually in some public place like a doctor's waiting room or some other place where I can't ignore it no matter how much I try precisely because I want to so badly. Basically the show's formula goes something like this: Charlie Sheen is suave and calm and cool about everything, while his friend who is one of the worst actors I've ever seen freaks out and hams it up so badly for the studio audience that he does everything to break the fourth wall short of winking knowingly to the camera. I saw one episode where they were in a library, and Charlie's friend (I'm not even going to bother learning any of these characters names) was so overwhelmed by how many books there were and how many choices he had that he started freaking out and hyperventilating. I think it's about high time he's given something to hyperventilate about. There is also a child character on the show, but I've mercifully never seen him. As child characters are almost universally annoying, there's a good chance that if I had, he would be making this list too.

The Method: I think it would be all too fitting that the annoying sidekick from this show should be carved into two and a half pieces (some of you hot shot mathematicians out there may say "you mean three", but I say thee nay), and then perhaps those pieces could be stuffed in an airplane panic barf bag and left on Mr. Sheen's front door.

American Idol

The Target: Everyone who has ever been involved in this show in any capacity whatsoever.

The Crime: Being involved in this show in any capacity whatsoever.

The Method: Nuking them from orbit is the only way to be sure. Let's just pretend Dexter has access to nukes. And a spaceship.

Everybody Loves Raymond

The Target: Raymond, obviously

The Crime: Aside from the fact that this asshole is one of the most overpaid, annoying, unfunny "comedians" who has ever existed, he has got to have the most awful voice I have ever heard. It sounds like a fat kid with a serious goiter wearing a squeaky clown nose that pinches his nostrils shut being run over by Jabba the Hutt. I realize the guy can't help the voice he was born with (yes, even as a baby, he sounded just like that), but you know what he can help? Talking with it.

The Method: I have never seen more than two minutes of this show at a time, so I know nothing whatsoever about any of the characters except that none of them are funny. So I don't really know an appropriate way for the character to die, so let's just have Dexter shovel throat lozenges down his throat until the problem of his obnoxious voice (and breathing) is fixed.

Heroes

The Target: Maya Herrera

The Crime: Season Two of this series introduced a whole new batch of utterly useless, boring characters, but the worst offenders were definitely Maya Herrera and her brother Alejandro, whose storyline was by far the least compelling of an entire group of uninteresting storylines. Fortunately Maya was naive and stupid enough to invite the two-dimensional Sylar (a guy who couldn't be any more obvious a villain if he grew a moustache and twirled it while tying young ladies to railroad tracks) along on their journey to America, which mercifully resulted in the death of half the pair. Where Sylar has failed, Dexter would triumph. And maybe even kill Sylar for good measure as well, since that guy has worn out his welcome too.

The Method: Since Maya seems to be particularly clueless when it comes to dealing with bad guys, I suggest that Dexter go all out, get a cape, grow a moustache, kidnap her and then actually tie her to some train tracks. Then, because her powers involve her eyes filling with inky blackness while she mysteriously seems to drain the life out of everyone around, Dexter would airlift an octopus to squirt ink into her eyes and crush her to a pulp as it convulses to its suffocating death. Wouldn't want to wait for a train to do the job, after all. That's just cliche.

So that's just a sampling of shows that I strongly feel Dexter should visit. If you have any other shows to suggest, feel free to mention them in the comments thread below!